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George R. Sherman, 

Captain, Company C, Seventh United States Colored Troops. 
Aged 25 years. 




































































































































































































y 



George K. Sherman. 

Aged 73 years. 







THE NEGRO 

I 

AS 

A SOLDIER. 


BY 

GEORGE R. SHERMAN, 

[Captain Seventh United States Colored Infantry and Brevet-Lieut.- 
Colonel United States Volunteers ] 



PROVIDENCE: 

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. 

1913. 





E'S+6 

■A/3 8s~5 


SNOW A FARNHAM CO., PRINTERS. 

em 

P fes » V 

AfR 1 1SIJ 


i 



PERSONAL NARRATIVES 


OF EVENTS IN THE 


War of the Rebellion, 


BEING- PAPERS READ BEFORE THE 


RHODE ISLAND SOLDIERS AND SAILORS 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 


Seventh Series.— No. 7. 


PROVIDENCE : 

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. 

1913. 








[Edition limited to two hundred and fifty copies.] 




THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER 


By GEORGE R. SHERMAN,* 

[Captain Seventh United States Colored Infantry and Brevet-Lieut.- 
Colonel United States Volunteers.] 


When we remember that in all the wars of our 
country, negroes have always shown that they were 
able and willing to fight, and that patriotism burned 
brightly in their hearts, though they were usually 
looked upon and treated as chattels, that at Bunker 
Hill, standing shoulder to shoulder with the white 
yeomanry of the colonies, negroes stood firmly, and 
bore their part bravely; that a Rhode Island regi¬ 
ment of manumitted slaves did valiant service for 
their state and country in the Revolutionary War; 
that as early as June 28, 1778, negroes were to be 
found serving in as many as eighteen brigades under 
Washington; that at New Orleans, in the war of 

• For many of the facts here related I am indebted to a paper by 
William Elliot Furness, Major of the Eighth Regiment United States 
Colored Troops, which had been read by him before the Illinois Com- 
mandery of the Loyal Legion; and by his permission I have copied 
copiously therefrom. 





6 


THE NEGRO 


1812, Jackson appealed to the patriotism of negro 
soldiers and was materially aided by them, and that 
always, from the day when John Paul Jones first 
hoisted the Stars and Stripes, colored men have 
served in our navy on equal terms with their white 
brothers, it is a matter of wonder and amazement 
that all the military history of negro service was ap¬ 
parently overlooked or ignored at the beginning of 
the War of the Rebellion, and that our Government 
was so slow to avail itself, as it might have done 
much earlier, of the efficient aid of more than a quar¬ 
ter of a million of colored men ready and willing to 
respond at call. But very few, even of those who 
bad been the most steadfast friends of the down¬ 
trodden race, believed that negroes were able to meet 
their masters on the field of battle ; probably because 
black men had cowered for so many years beneath 
the blows of their overseers that their spirit was sup¬ 
posed to be crushed out, and a deed of negro heroism, 
except of passive, suffering endurance, was beyond 
the faith even of ardent Abolitionists. 

Nobody turned back the pages of history and read 
of the heroism and military success of the blacks of 


AS A SOLDIER. 


7 


Hayti, who defeated the heroes of Bohenlinden, the 
flower of the French army, who won for their leader 
Toussaint L’Ouverture, a \iegro slave, the title of 
“The Black Napoleon,” and gained freedom for them¬ 
selves and independence for their country.* Nor 
did any one peruse the annals of the far past, which 
tell how the black contingents of the armies of the 
Pharaohs fought with courage in no way inferior to 
that of their lighter skinned companions-in-arms. 

No, for our negroes were but the humble servants 
of masters who were sometimes indulgent, but often 
cruel, the born slaves of a more fortunate race, and 
were considered unworthy of recognition in any 
other capacity. They were supposed to be but little 
higher in the scale of animated nature than apes or 
gorillas, and their value was reckoned as one would 
estimate that of his horse or ox, by the money they 
would bring on the auction block, or by the utility 
of the work they could be expected to perform with- 


* Of Toussaint L’Ouverture it has been said by Goodwin in his lectures, 
that the West India Islands, since their first discovery by Columbus, could 
not boast of a single name which deserved comparison, with this negro 
chieftain of Hayti. 




8 


THE NEGRO 


out compensation from their masters; while north of 
Mason and Dixon’s line they were regarded by many 
with aversion and often with loathing. 

While the people of the North, for a long time 
seemed to ignore or overlook the possibility of enlist¬ 
ing many thousand efficient recruits from the en¬ 
slaved race, that race itself appears never to have 
faltered in its faith that victory for the Union army 
would bring enfranchisement with it. The negroes 
knew, as if by intuition, that their fate hung on the 
success or defeat of the hosts of the North, and they 
waited in prayerful patience for the expected day of 
jubilee. Their patience, under the circumstances, 
redounds to their eternal honor; no treacherous ser¬ 
vile uprising, no barbarous slaughter of women and 
children in the rear of the Confederate forces tar¬ 
nished the good name of these enslaved men, and 
their first acts of hostility to their masters and first 
service to the government of the United States were 
performed under the flag of the Union, when called 
upon by the highest authority to take arms in its de¬ 
fence. Not until the muskets of the national govern¬ 
ment were placed in their hands did they presume to 


AS A SOLDIER. 


9 


meet their rebellious masters in war, and then they 
struck valiant blows and shrank not from any duty 
which brave Christian soldiers should perform. 

During the first year of the war no voice was 
raised in behalf of the slaves, nor were they allowed 
any share in the performance of the most pressing 
duties of the time. Generals issued orders for the 
return of fugitive slaves to their masters, and pro 
hibited negroes from entering the lines of the armies 
in the field. Wherever the Union forces moved, 
slaveholders did not hesitate to reclaim their chat 
tels, and the free soldiers of the North were expected 
to aid them in so doing. But this service soon began 
to shock the sense of justice of the soldiers, and here 
and there commanders would connive at the escape, 
or would openly protect from recapture the slaves 
who had thrown themselves upon their mercy; and 
later, when reverses came, when the battle lists of 
losses grew longer and longer, when evrry village 
throughout the land was in mourning, when the gov¬ 
ernment began to see that the conflict would prove 
something more than a few months’ pastime, and 
wdien the country at large commenced to realize the 


10 


THE NEGRO 


magnitude of the task it had undertaken to perform, 
then the project of arming* the negroes was seriously 
thought of and discussed. 

For a long time the enlistment of colored men was 
bitterly opposed by many civil as well as military 
officers ; indeed, it was not until the closing years of 
the war that the negroes’ right to fight for the com¬ 
mon country was universally acknowledged, and even 
the tardy recognition of their services in conquering 
the Confederates and of their soldierly qualities and 
bravery on the field of battle has been literally 
wrung from unwilling witnesses. 

Time would fail, to note in detail General Hun¬ 
ter’s experiment in organizing negro troops in South 
Carolina, or that of General Phelps and General 
Butler in Louisiana, and only a hasty review can be 
given of a few of the incidents that led up to the em¬ 
ployment of the much despised race as soldiers. 

In March, 1862, Congress added a new provision 
to the Articles of War, forbidding officers and sol¬ 
diers from returning fugitive slaves. In the follow¬ 
ing June the slaves of those actually engaged in re¬ 
bellion were declared free, and in July, of the same 


AS A SOLDIER. 


11 


year, President Lincoln was authorized to accept ne¬ 
groes for any service. About a month later, the Sec¬ 
retary of War, for the first time, authorized the rais¬ 
ing of negro troops, by directing General Rufus Sax¬ 
ton to arm, uniform, equip and receive into the serv¬ 
ice of the United States such numbers of volunteers 
of African descent as he might deem expedient, not 
exceeding five thousand, and to detail officers to in¬ 
struct and command them. In September, the Union 
victory at Antietam so strengthened the administra¬ 
tion that the President at once issued his prelimi¬ 
nary Emancipation, which was to go into effect Jan¬ 
uary 1, 1863; and after that step all logical objec¬ 
tion to using the negroes as a military factor ceased. 

On January 1, 1863 (now just fifty years ago), 
President Lincoln issued his final Emancipation 
Proclamation, and the project of making use of the 
negroes as soldiers was then considered more favor¬ 
ably; but not until the 22d of May following was the 
Bureau of Colored Troops established in the War 
Department. The tide then fully turned, for the 
government itself undertook the w T ork of recruiting 
and organizing the new military force. 



12 


THE NEGRO 


By the close of the year 1863 fully fifty thousand 
colored troops had been organized, the number being 
trebled within a year; and when the end came, there 
had been enrolled a total of 178,975 of these men in 
the Union Army. Every northern state east of the 
Rocky Mountains, except Nebraska, is credited with 
them, and nearly 100,000 were raised in the states 
which had seceded. 

When the enlistment of colored men was fairly be¬ 
gun, the Confederate Congress passed an Act, the 
fourth section of which reads as follows: 

“That every white person, being a commissioned 
officer, or acting as such, who, during the present 
war, shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms 
against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, 
train, organize or prepare negroes or mulattoes for 
military service against the Confederate States, or 
who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in 
any military enterprise, attack, or conflict in such 
service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrec¬ 
tion, and shall, if captured, be put to death, or be 
otherwise punished at the discretion of the Court.” 

Another section provided: “That all negro slaves 


AS A SOLDIER. 


13 


captured in arms be at once delivered over to the 
executive authorities of the respective states to which 
they belong, to be dealt with according to the laws 
of said states.” 

In view of this proclamation of outlawry, and of 
their knowledge that, if captured, they could not ex¬ 
pect the same treatment as white men, the voluntary 
enlistment of so many slaves gives conclusive evi 
dence of their having far more than ordinary cour¬ 
age and nerve. It shows that they were willing to 
put themselves in a position of the utmost peril to 
serve their country in its time of greatest need, and 
it also demonstrates their unfaltering faith that vic¬ 
tory to the North would bring enfranchisement to 
their race. 

The organization of the First Regiment of United 
States Colored Troops was begun in the District of 
Columbia, May 19, 1863, and about the same time a 
Board for the examination of officers of colored 
troops was appointed in the East, with Major-Gen¬ 
eral Casey as its president, and another for the West, 
to hold its sessions at Nashville. That the labors of 
these Boards contributed very materially to the sue- 


14 


THE NEGRO 


cess of the experiment of employing this class of sol¬ 
diers, no one acquainted with the facts can doubt. 
In almost every instance, I believe, the officers placed 
in command of colored troops were selected from 
officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates who 
had seen active sendee. No outside influence, 
whether social, political or military, had any undue 
weight with the examining board. Every candidate 
had to stand upon his own merit. In some cases field 
officers failed to pass as second lieutenants. Of 
seven hundred and forty candidates examined by 
General Casey’s board, prior to Feb. 2, 1864, three 
hundred and thirty-three were rejected, two hundred 
and two were recommended for second lieutenants, 
one hundred and one for first lieutenants, seventy- 
two for captains, eighteen for majors, eight for lieu¬ 
tenant-colonels, and only six were found equal to the 
responsibilities of colonel. 

It was the writer’s privilege, after two years’ serv¬ 
ice in the Eighty-First Regiment New York Volun¬ 
teers, to be assigned to the Seventh Regiment United 
States Colored Troops, with which he served a full 
three years’ term. 



AS A SOLDIER. 


15 


In considering the qualifications of negroes for 
service as soldiers, all authorities admit that they 
are quick to learn the manual of arms and the evolu¬ 
tions of the army drill. In these they took great 
pride and pleasure, and when well uniformed their 
appearance was always good. They endured the 
hardships of camp and marches with a cheerful pa¬ 
tience which was very pleasing to their officers, and 
it was particularly noticed on many occasions, that 
their percentage of stragglers on the march was phe¬ 
nomenally small. 

Aug. 19, 1804, Major-General David B. Birney, 
commanding the Tenth Army Corps, in general or¬ 
ders, complimented the colored troops, viz.: 

“To the colored regiments, recently added to us 
and fighting with us, the Major-General tenders his 
thanks for their uniform good conduct and soldierly 
bearing. They have set a good example to our vet¬ 
erans by the entire absence of straggling from their 
ranks on the march.’ 7 

Their long service as slaves and servants made 
them obedient and easily subject to their officers, 
apd very few deserted or became insubordinate^ It 


16 


THE NEGRO 


has been said that they were not so able to endure 
the fatigue of a long march as were the white sol¬ 
diers, but the fact that they straggled less than white 
soldiers refutes that assertion. From my experience, 
in further contradiction of that statement, I wdll add 
that of my company, after marching thirty miles in 
Florida on the twenty-fifth day of July, 1864, every 
man who started with us in the morning was pres¬ 
ent to answer to his name when we halted at night 
for bivouac. They endured hunger more patiently 
than other troops of our army and were found to be 
as healthy generally. 

The enlisted men of my regiment were mostly 
slaves from the plantations of those counties of 
Maryland and Virginia which lie east of the Chesa¬ 
peake Bay. These recruits came to us ignorant of 
books, without interest in anything outside their 
own plantation world; they were ignorant of every¬ 
thing except to obey. Very few could read a word, 
and excepting only a few free born men, scarcely one 
could wf'ite his name. To compensate for these dis¬ 
advantages, there was at once manifested by them 
great eagerness to learn their duties, and an interest 





AS A SOLDIER. 


17 


in them that could not be excelled. They gave them¬ 
selves up to the work before them, wholly and with¬ 
out reserve, while the officers of the regiment seemed 
imbued with an earnest determination and a com¬ 
mon ambition to make the regiment second to none. 
To this end the latter labored unceasingly, not in 
matters of drill and discipline only, but also to rem¬ 
edy, as far as possible, their almost total lack of ed¬ 
ucation. Classes were organized in each company 
for the non-commissioned officers, and they would go 
out among the men to teach them the A, B, C; and 
except when military duty prevented, these classes 
were kept up almost to the day of discharge. It was 
an interesting sight, that might have been witnessed 
almost every day during the first year, to see groups 
of five or six men gathered around a primer or spell¬ 
ing book, learning the alphabet, and as time passed 
on, to see those same men writing letters to their 
friends, or reading a book or paper. 

When the regiment was disbanded, after a full 
three years’ service, nearly all of them could read, 
a large percentage could write fairly well, and many 
had acquired considerable knowledge of the elemen- 


18 


THE NEGRO 


tary brandies, and, what was of even greater impor 
tance, all had learned self-reliance and self-respect, 
and went back to their homes with views enlarged, 
ambition aroused, and their interest in the outside 
world thoroughly awakened. 

After the regiment was in fair working order, the 
officers sought to teach their men the value of money 
and induce them to save their earnings. The success 
of their efforts in that important direction is at¬ 
tested by the fact that when the regiment was mus¬ 
tered out nearly $90,000 stood to their credit in sav¬ 
ings institutions in Baltimore and Washington. 

Not only were the men remarkable for their tern 
perate habits, cases of drunkenness being very rare, 
but they were quiet and orderly as well, and their 
freedom from the use of profane and obscene lan¬ 
guage was remarkable. 

For these reasons, it seems the negro soldier must 
be admitted to be fully equal, in all respects, to sol¬ 
diers of other races and colors, particularly if it can 
be shown that he has stood the supreme test of bat¬ 
tle by taking and maintaining his position side by 
side and shoulder to shoulder with his fellow white 



AS A SOLD I EH. 


19 


soldiers,—facing the same enemy, with the same 
dogged persistence; storming the same fortifications, 
with the same undaunted heroism, and resisting the 
assaults of the common enemy with equal courage 
and efficiency. 

At the battle of Rhode Island, Aug. 29, 1778, ac¬ 
cording to Arnold, the Rhode Island historian, “the 
newly raised black regiment of manumitted slaves, 
commanded by Col. Christopher Greene, justified the 
highest hopes of its leaders and contributed in no 
small degree to the favorable result of that sangui¬ 
nary contest. Posted in a grove in a valley, and 
headed by their Major, Samuel Ward, they three 
times drove back the Hessians, who strove desper¬ 
ately and vainly to dislodge them. So bloody was 
the struggle that, on the day after the battle, the 
Hessian colonel who had led these repeated charges, 
applied for a change of command because he dared 
not lead that regiment again into action, lest they 
should shoot him for causing so great a loss of life. ,? 
You will remember it is stated this was a “newly 
raised black regiment,” probably they were poorly 
prepared by drill and discipline for such a desperate 
contest, but they three times drove back the enemy. 


20 


THE NEGRO 


I have seen escaping slaves fresh from Southern 
plantations come into the Union army as recruits. 
We have later noticed their soldierly hearing, fidel¬ 
ity, and endurance; we have been with them on the 
march, in the bivouac, and on picket and fatigue 
duty, and have observed with deep respect and ad¬ 
miration their unyielding firmness and self-sacrific¬ 
ing valor on the skirmish line and amid the whirl¬ 
wind shock of battle, while cannon were roaring far 
and near, in front, to the right and to the left; when 
great trees were being splintered, broken and 
crushed as if smitten by the bolts of heaven; when 
whistling, singing bullets were flying thick about 
them, and comrades were falling all around us, but 
I never have seen one of them show the least sign of 
cowardice. 

We once saw a white regiment, its ammunition 
exhausted, just as the Confederates charged with 
their famous wild yell, break ranks in confusion and 
flee in disorder through the Union lines. We saw 
the Seventh Regiment of United States Colored 
Troops sent to the relief of the fleeing whites. We 
saw them advance in perfect order, with the steadi- 


AS A SOLDIER. 


21 


ness of veterans, without discharging a musket un¬ 
til the order to fire was given, and then they met the 
rushing charge of the foe as a rock receives and rolls 
back the surges of the ocean.* 

I was with the same regiment on Sept. 29, 1864, 
when Companies C. D. G and K, were placed under 
the command of Captain Julius A. Weiss, and or¬ 
dered to charge and capture a fort in our front. 
When the order was received the Captain exclaimed, 
“What, capture a fort with a skirmish line? Who 
ever heard of such a thing? We’ll try, but it can’t 
be done.” It proved to be Fort Gilmer, on the main 
line of Confederate defense, about six and a half 
miles from Richmond. A white regiment, the Ninth 
Maine, had just been repulsed in a charge on the 
same fort. 

I had been transferred from Company F the even¬ 
ing before to command Company C, expecting pro¬ 
motion as its Captain. Advancing as skirmishers 
we soon encountered a heavy fire of shell and shrap¬ 
nel, not from the fort in our front alone, but also 

* See also history of Seventh Regiment United States Colored Troops. 
Page 30. 



22 


THE NEGRO 


from one on our right flank, which was quickly fol¬ 
lowed by canister, and soon supplemented by mus¬ 
ketry, the instant it could be utilized. Almost at the 
same moment the order to charge was given, and we 
dashed forward, soon to find ourselves plunging into 
a. ditch fully seven feet deep, and twice that width. 
Fausing only for a breathing spell, the men helped 
one another up the interior, and nearly perpendicu¬ 
lar wall of the ditch, until sixty or more had climbed 
to the foot of the parapet, and, upon signal, all at¬ 
tempted to scale and storm it. A volley from mus¬ 
kets whose muzzles almost touched us, and whose 
bullets penetrated the brains or breasts of many of 
those who showed themselves above the exterior 
crest, drove them instantly back, tumbling many into 
the ditch. Hand grenades were also thrown among 
us, some of which were caught by the men and hurled 
back at the enemy. The assaulting party was soon 
rendered perfectly helpless and we were compelled 
to surrender. 

All of the four companies except two lieutenants 
who skulked and one man who escaped from the 
ditch, were either killed, wounded or captured. One 


AS A SOLDIER. 


28 


man escaped from the ditch and ran hack to the regi¬ 
ment unobserved by our captors, during the excite¬ 
ment attending the surrender, and the transfer of our 
personal effects to the possession of the victors. One 
of the prisoners was claimed as a slave, and was de¬ 
livered over to his would-be master. 

Of the 150 enlisted men who started, 51, or over 
32 per cent, were killed or mortally wounded; a loss 
exceeding that of any other command in a single en¬ 
gagement, during the entire war. 

Oct. 11, 1864, General Butler issued a General Or¬ 
der, in which he complimented the colored soldiers 
of his command, viz.: 

“The colored soldiers, by coolness, steadiness and 
dash, have silenced every cavil of the doubters of 
their soldierly capacity, and drawn tokens of admi¬ 
ration from their enemies—have brought their late 
masters, even, to the consideration of the question 
whether they will not employ as soldiers the hitherto 
despised race.” 

For further interesting reports of this remarkable assault 
by colored troops on one of the strongest forts on the de¬ 
fenses of Richmond, the following accounts from both the 


24 


THE NEGRO 


Union and Confederate side, are reprinted from Personal 
Narratives, No. 7, Fifth Series. 

The report of Capt. Weiss, says: 

“Upon receiving the order to charge the fort, I at once, 
about one o’clock p. m., ordered the four companies, on the 
right of the regiment, twenty-five or thirty paces to the 
front where a slight depression in the ground screened them 
from the eyes, if not the projectiles, of the enemy. After 
being deployed by the flank on the right of the second 
company, the command advanced in ordinary quick step 
against the objective point. Emerging from the swale into 
view, it became at once the target for a seemingly redoubled 
fire, not only from the fort in front, but also from the one 
on its right. The fire of the latter had been reported 
silenced, but instead, from its position to the right oblique, it 
proved even more destructive than that of the one in front. 

“Both forts were most advantageously situated for de¬ 
fense, at the extremity of a plain, variously estimated at 
from five hundred to seven hundred yards, the surface of 
which afforded at no point shelter from view or shot to an 
assailing party. The forts were connected by a curtain of 
rifle-pits containing a re-entrant angle, thus providing for a 
reciprocal enfilading fire in case either was attacked. 

“The nature of the ground and the small altitude of the 
ordnance above the level of the plain, also made the fire in 
the nature of a ricochet. 

“As the party advanced the enemy's shell and shrapnel 
were exchanged for canister, followed soon by a lively rattle 
of musketry. When within range of the latter, and after 
having traversed about three-fourths of the distance, the 
order to charge was given and obeyed with an alacrity that 
seemed to make the execution almost precede the order. 


AS A SOLDIER. 


25 


For a moment, judging from the slacking of their fire, the 
enemy seemed to be affected by a panicky astonishment, but 
soon recovering, they opened again with canister and mus¬ 
ketry, which, at the shorter range, tore through the ranks 
with deadlier effect. 

“In a few minutes the ditch of the fort was reached. It 
was fully seven feet deep and twelve to fourteen wide, 
the excavated material sufficing for the embankments of the 
fort. Some one hundred and twenty men and officers pre¬ 
cipitated themselves into it, many losing their lives at its 
very edge. After a short breathing spell men were helped 
up the exterior slope of the parapet on the shoulders of 
others, and fifty or sixty being thus disposed an attempt was 
made to storm the fort. At the signal all rose, but the 
enemy, lying securely sheltered behind the interior slope, the 
muzzles of their guns almost touching the storming party, 
received the latter with a crushing fire, sending many into 
the ditch below shot through the brain or breast. Several 
other attempts were made with like results, till at least 
forty or fifty of the assailants were writhing in the ditch 
below or resting forever. 

“The defense having been obviously reinforced meanwhile 
from other points not so directly attacked, and having armed 
the gunners with muskets, it was considered impolitic to at¬ 
tempt another storm with the now greatly reduced force on 
hand, especially as the cessation of the artillery fire of the 
fort was considered a sufficient hint to the commander of 
the Union forces that the attacking party had come to close 
quarters and were proper subj'ects for reinforcements. No 
signs, however, of the latter appearing, it was decided to 
surrender, especially as the enemy had now commenced to 
roll lighted short fuse shells among the stormers, against 
which there was no defense. 


26 


THE NEGRO 


“Seven officers and from seventy to eighty enlisted men de¬ 
livered np their arms to an enemy gallant enough to have 
fought for a better cause. 

A correspondent of the Richmond Whig under date of 
Oct. 6, 18G4, gives the following account of what he saw 
and heard, on his visit to Fort Gilmer a few days after 
the assault: 

“When the writer hereof turns to look uopn the traces of 
the carnage of the 29th ult., standing upon Fort Gilmer’s 
parapet, he looks upon forty odd stark figures that are 
lying below—the forms of Butler’s slain black soldiers. 
They are shot in the head, the heart, and wherever it is 
fatal to be struck. 

“A sturdy artillery man near by volunteers the informa¬ 
tion : ‘Those fellows fought well, sir. They came up at 
double-quick, with their guns at right shoulder-shift, and 
leaped into the ditch. Then they began to assist one an¬ 
other up the parapet, and here,’ pointing to the spot, ‘many 
of them were shot down upon the edge. Our men threw 
hand grenades among them, and these assisted us in killing 
many. We heard one of them cry in the ditch, “Look out for 
the hand bombs,” and that fellow you see lying there was 
bending over one of them to pick it up, and throw it back at 
us, as others had done, when it exploded and blew the top 
of his head off.’ ” 

The Southern Historical Society on page 441. Volume 1, of 
its publications gives an account of the assault on Fort 
Gilmer, written by one who says he saw the whole of it: 

“Fort Gilmer was on a hill, with quite an extensive flat 
in front. The Louisiana Guard Artillery on the left, and 
the Salem Artillery on the right of the fort, occupied re- 


AS A SOLDIER. 


27 


doubts so constructed that each had an enfilade fire upon 
the Yankees as they advanced. The enemy came rather 
cautiously at first, but finally they came with a rush, our 
artillery firing shrapnel at first, but they soon began to load 
with canister, and the way those negroes fell before it was 
very gratifying to the people on our side of the works. But 
the Yankees came on until they got to the ditch in front 
of Fort Gilmer—a dry ditch about ten feet deep and twelve 
feet wide. Into this ditch a great many of the negroes 
jumped, and endeavored to climb upon each other’s shoulders, 
but w r ere beaten back by our infantry, and almost all of 
them killed. One negro who was either drunk or crazy, 
crawled through a culvert which ran from the inside of the 
fort into the ditch, and was shot on the inside. 

“Thus ended the battle of Fort Gilmer, and there was no 
more fighting done on this part of the line that day. 

“Had our troops given way upon that day, and I think if 
the Yankees had known how near they w r ere to Richmond 
we must have been beaten, for there was nothing between 
us and the city, and instead of being burned by our men as 
it afterwards was, Richmond must have fallen into the 
hands of ‘Beast Butler’ and his negroes.” 

On another page he says: “The truth is, that upon that 
same 29th of September, Richmond came nearer being cap¬ 
tured, and that too, by negro troops, than it ever did during 
the whole war, and but for the devotion and bravery of 
two decimated brigades, consisting of about three hundred 
men each, the Yankees must have carried everything before 
them and captured Richmond.” 

Of this assault General Benjamin F. Butler, in his 
autobiography, page 736, says: 


28 


THE NEGRO 



Fort Gilmer. 


miles from Richmond. 


Fort Gilmer was the salient point in the line, and 
its occupation would have caused the evacuation of 












AS A SOLDIER. 


29 


the whole line. The men rushed up to the breast¬ 
works, in spite of a heavy fire; they found the works 
were very high, and the ditch very deep, from the 
bottom to the parapet being fifteen feet. The colored 
soldiers, undaunted, attempted to assault the para¬ 
pet, and climbed upon each other’s shoulders for the 
purpose of getting at the enemy, but, after a pro¬ 
longed struggle and the death of many, they were 
obliged to surrender; but the manner of the attack 
more than compensated for the loss, for it was an 
other demonstration that the negro would fight.’ 7 

We find on page 134, Rebellion Records, Yol. XLII, 
Tart 1, that the Tenth Army Corps on that occasion 
consisted of 33 regiments of infantry, 9 batteries of 
artillery and 2 battalions of cavalry; that the total 
casualties of the corps that day were 9G3, while the 
same page shows that the Seventh United States Col¬ 
ored Infantry lost 235, or over 24 per cent of all the 
losses of the Tenth Corps. We therefore have a right 
to claim for a colored regiment the lion’s share of, 

General R. S. Foster’s congratulatory order to the 
Tenth Army Corps, as given on page 801, Part III, 
Yol. XLII, “Records of the Rebellion”: 


80 


THE NEGRO 


“But among the last of those grand carnivals of 
death, in which you displayed such gallant and un¬ 
flinching bravery, the assault upon Port Gilmer on 
the twenty-ninth of September, when so many of 
your brave comrades found soldiers’ graves; when, 
amid the lead and iron hail, you gallantly and 
bravely, although unsuccessfully, assaulted one of 
the strongest works on the continent,—’twas there 
I learned of what material you are composed, and 
of what gallant deeds you are capable of performing. 

All this outspoken attestation of commendation, 
coming as it does from friend and foe alike, cannot 
reflect more credit upon the negro as a soldier than 
the indirect testimony of the Confederate Congress, 
which passed a bill in December, 1864, for the im¬ 
pressment of slaves into the Confederate army. 

When that bill was being debated, General Robert 
E. Lee said: “Fort Gilmer proved, the other day, 
that negroes will fight; they raised each other on the 
parapet to be shot at as they appeared above.” 

The Richmond Examiner, of Dec. 24, 1864, refer¬ 
ring to the bill which had then passed one branch of 
the Confederate Congress, said that it might very 


AS A SOLDIER. 


31 


properly be amended and enlarged in the other 
branch by placing at the disposal of the military au¬ 
thorities not only 40,000 negroes, blit 80,000, or even 
100,000, and leaving it to General Lee, at his discre¬ 
tion and according to the exigencies of the service, 
to use them in any way he might think useful. 

While we remember that 30,847 colored soldiers 
gave up their lives in the struggle for National pres¬ 
ervation ; when we think of Fort Gilmer, Milliken’s 
Bend, Port Hudson, Nashville, Olu-stee, the Crater 
of Petersburg, Fort Wagner, and many other engage¬ 
ments with the Confederates in which they partici¬ 
pated, and in all of which they acquitted themselves 
with credit, as testified to by an almost endless num¬ 
ber of official reports published by our government in 
the “Rebellion Records,” and also by a multitude of 
unwilling witnesses whose prejudices were overcome 
by numerous instances of almost unexampled gal¬ 
lantry which came within their personal observation, 
we realize that the evidence is conclusive, that the 
negro troops recruited and organized by the govern¬ 
ment to aid in the suppression of the Rebellion were 
fully as capable as the troops of other races to per¬ 
form the duties of soldiers. 




32 


THE NEGRO 


Gen. B. F. Butler, in his final address to the sol¬ 
diers of his command, pays this tribute to the col¬ 
ored soldiers: 

“Jn this army you have been treated as soldiers, 
not as laborers. 

“You have shown yourselves worthy of the uniform 
you wear. 

“The best officers of the Union seek to command 
you. 

“Your bravery has won the admiration of those 
who would be your masters. 

“Your patriotism, fidelity and courage have illus¬ 
trated the best qualities of manhood. 

“With the bayonet you have unlocked the iron- 
barred gates of prejudice, and opened new fields of 
freedom, liberty, and equality of right to yourselves 
and to your race.” 

Ever since the close of the Civil War colored sol¬ 
diers have formed a part of our regular army. It fell 
to the lot of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry regiments 
to prove that negroes could do as well under fire in 
the Indian wars as they had when fighting for the 
freedom of their race; they scouted for years against 


AS A SOLDIER. 


33 


hostile Indians in Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and 
Arizona, taking a conspicuous part in running to 
earth Geromnimo’s and Victoria’s bands of Apaches. 
In the war with Spain, in the battle of Santiago, the 
four regiments of colored regulars, the Ninth and 
Tenth Cavalry, and the Twenty-fourth and Twenty- 
fifth Infantry, won praise from all sides, particularly 
for their advance on San Juan and Kittle Hills. 
From the very beginning of the movement of the 
army after its landing in Cuba, the negro troops were 
in the front of the fighting, and contributed largely 
to the successful result. Although they sustained 
heavy losses, the men fought with the same gallantry 
they had displayed on the plains, as is attested by 
the honors awarded. In every company there were 
instances of personal gallantry. These four regi¬ 
ments of negroes also served with great credit in the 
Philippines, and the Inspector General of the Army 
reported in 1902 that “the Twenty-fifth Infantry is 
the best regiment I have seen in the Philippines;” 
not the best colored regiment, mark you, but the best 
regiment. 


34 


THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER. 


I believe every candid person will agree with me, 
that our colored soldiers have deserved well of the 
Republic, for as Dunbar, the colored poet, has said: 

“When war, in savage triumph, 

Spread abroad its funeral pall— 

Then you called the colored soldiers, 

And they answered to your call. 

And like hounds unleashed and eager 
For the life blood of the prey, 

Sprung they forth and bore them bravely 
In the thickest of the fray. 

And where’er the fight was hottest, 

Where the bullets fastest fell, 

There they pressed, unblanched and fearless, 

At the very mouth of hell. 

And their deeds shall find a record 
In the registry of fame; 

For their blood has cleansed completely 
Every blot of Slavery’s shame. 

So all honor and all glory 
To those noble sons of Ham,— 

The gallant colored soldiers 
Who fought for Uncle Sam.” 


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